Frederick's Of Hollywood Soon To Be Frederick's Of Manila?

Apparently, making trashy lingerie costs more than we realized. And, in this economy is not considered more important than buying groceries or paying mortgages. What?

But what's bad news to the 15% of workers laid off in the U.S. is a message of hope in the Philippines. It's all about perspective.

Business Mirror (Philippines): HERE’S a piece of good news from the manufacturing industry. While other garments manufacturer have cut jobs, luxury lingerie maker Frederick’s of Hollywood Group Inc. announced it will move its manufacturing operations to the Philippines.

In a statement released early this month, executive chair Peter Cole said “an unprecedented negative macroeconomic environment” in the US has “significantly impacted” the company’s first-quarter results.

“In response, we are continuing to reduce operating expenses, primarily through reductions in personnel,” Cole was quoted in the statement as saying.

He added that since Frederick’s merged with its parent FOH Holdings Inc. in January, the company has “terminated approximately 15 percentof our domestic employees [other than store personnel] and have transitioned certain manufacturing support functions previously performed by some of these employees to our facility in the Philippines.”

And why is the American sexy underthings market doing so badly?

...[According to a statement from a recently shuttered Phillippine lingerie company] consumers in the US, the firm’s principal market, “spend their income first in paying home loan mortgages, food and education, with garments as the last priority.”